BSkyB: “Very limited ramifications” over hacking

Investment banker Morgan Stanley, in a note to clients, says that last week’s admission by BSkyB that a journalist on its Sky News team hacked into certain emails with the knowledge and approval of Sky News’ then managing editor, ought to have “limited ramifications” for the broadcaster.

The bank says that while the action was illegal, the fact that the police were passed the content of the emails in 2008, and that no other illegal or unethical actions have come to light, suggests that BSkyB is “clean”.

The bank’s report continued: “We do not see it as plausible that Sky’s broadcasting licence would be taken away on ‘fit and proper’ grounds on the basis of the reported incident. The only real ramification we could see is if one could argue that wrongdoing of the phone hacking and email hacking type is endemic across News Corporation and its associates such as BSkyB. Whereas, however, there is evidence of the spread of such activity across the NewsCorp newspapers, this episode at Sky News is apparently isolated, well-recorded and of a different type.”